Encryption and key management as strategic business issues

Encryption is now viewed as a strategic issue with business leaders gaining greater influence over their organization’s encryption strategy, according to Richard Moulds, the vice president for product management and strategy at Thales e-Security.

In this podcast, recorded at RSA Conference 2012, Richard talks about a new study that shows that the CIO, CTO or IT leader still tends to be the most important figure in deciding encryption strategy (39% of respondents), but non-IT business managers have an increasing role in determining that strategy (more than doubling since 2005 to 21% of respondents), demonstrating that encryption is no longer seen as just an IT issue but one that affects an entire organization.

The main drivers for deploying encryption solutions are to protect brand reputation (45%) and lessen the impact of data breaches (40%). Compliance is also a major driver for using encryption with 39% of respondents saying it is to comply with privacy or data security regulations and requirements. Compliance is in fact the number one driver for using encryption in the US, UK and France.